Cancelling Michael Jackson Has Only Made Him More Powerful

That’s right, this is another article about cancel culture, the phenomenon where a bunch of people on the internet get mad about that person and then they’re meant to go away forever as if they were an actually funny sitcom on Fox. It turns out that this doesn’t work because Michael Jackson was cancelled and the Associated Press is reporting that sales of Jackson’s music and memorabilia hasn’t been impacted.

“He still commands prices compared to most any other celebrity,” said Darren Julien, president and CEO of the Culver City, California-based Julien’s Auctions. He said his auction house has sold around $15 million of the superstar singer’s property including his white glove that went for $480,000 in 2009 and a jacket, which was recently bought for $75,000.

“He’s the only celebrity where we would have lines of people to get in whenever we had stuff of his to auction,” he continued. “There’s only one person that compares to Marilyn Monroe in collectability, and that is Michael Jackson.”

It might help that Jackson is dead. As I mentioned when The Simpsons pulled the episode he guested in from streaming services, Jackson’s not getting any royalties from his stuff anymore, he’s dead. You don’t have to feel bad for liking Thriller because you’re not supporting a pedophile, like every fan of opera and classical music you’re listening to a song that happened to be written by a pedophile who has been dead for years.

Despite the documentary, Jackson’s music streaming numbers continued to soar, according to Ian Drew, consumer editorial director at Billboard. He said Jackson’s estate has been smart about keeping his music relevant, but it could be diminished over those being “creeped out” by allegations.

The further we get away from Jackson’s death, the less him molesting every boy he could get his hands on is going to matter to people. People are still Catholic and still read Ayn Rand, after all.